care less if they lived or died, but it was never good to cut down a citizen in a robbery. There’s trouble enough from the law if they’re just after you for a payroll, but if they’re after you for Murder One you’re in big trouble.
He pushed open the door of the shed and looked in. They were all there, Paulus and Wiss and Elkins and Kerwin and Littlefield and Salsa and Grofield and Phillips.
And Grofield’s girl, sitting with Grofield on one of the army cots.
Parker looked at her, and then looked at Grofield. Grofield had the look on his face that a man gets when he’s done something too stupid to be possible and he knows it but still wants to justify it.
Parker motioned to him to come outside. Grofield murmured something at the girl and got to his feet. She made as though to come along, but he shook his head and murmured some more, and this time she nodded and sat down again on the army cot. Her hands were in her lap, her knees were together, and her face looked pinched and frightened. She looked like the heroine of a silent movie.
Parker stepped aside and let Grofield out, then followed him and shut the door. He led the way out toward the edge, walking forward through the dim starlight, the sheds bulking around him. He stopped near the edge and said, “You can bury her down there some place.”
“Forget it, Parker. You don’t kill that girl.”
“That’s right, I don’t. She’s your responsibility.”
“You don’t have to worry about her, Parker.” Grofield’s voice had the shaky belligerence of a man who’s pretty sure he’s in the wrong but will be damned if he’ll admit it.
“I’m not worrying about her, Grofield. Youworry about her. In a day or two, she’ll want to go home.”
“No, she won’t.”
“When she tells you she’s changed her mind, she wants to go home, but she’ll never tell anybody where we are or what we look like or what our names are, that’s when you take care of her.”
“It won’t happen. She won’t say that.”
“And you take her down there and bury her. Deep, Grofield. I don’t want her found.”
“What if it doesn’t happen? What if she doesn’t change her mind?”
“We’ll be here three or four days. Then what?”
“New York. We’ll get a place in the Village for the summer. In the fall we’ll go south and do winter stock together. She’s always wanted to be an actress.”
“I always thought you were a pro.”
“I am. I know what I’m doing.”
Parker shook his head. “I didn’t know I’d have to spell it all out for you. All right, listen.”
“None of this is necessary, Parker, honest to Christ.”
“Shut up and listen. You know how to keep the law off your tail. She doesn’t. They’ll pick her up for jay-walking in New York City, and before the cop gets the ticket wrote out she’ll be so rattled she’ll spill the whole works.”
“No, she won’t. She can learn.”
“Shut up. That’s just one thing. She’ll louse up somehow, and get the law down on you. Number two, she’ll change her mind. Maybe tomorrow, maybe six months from now. She thought it’d be exciting to run off with an honest-to-god bank robber, and how long you think she’ll think it’s exciting?”
“I can keep her interested, Parker. That girl’s never been anywhere or done anything. I’ll show her New York this summer, Miami this winter, a season of winter stock, maybe New England next summer, maybe after a while go out and try Hollywood. She won’t get bored, believe me.”
“No, she’ll get homesick.”
“Parker, listen. She told me about herself. Her folks are dead; she was living with her uncle. Just the two of them.”
“That’s another thing. She’ll not only get homesick for the uncle, the uncle’ll keep the law looking for her.”
“No, he won’t. She doesn’t know it yet, but the uncle’s dead. He was that fireman, that George.”
Parker looked at him in the small light; too small to see his face. “You think that’s good?”
“She’s got no home to get sick for, no place to go back to.”
“She’ll want to be at the funeral, number one. Number two, you were part of the gang that killed him.”
“That was Edgars, that wasn’t us. I can tell her about that so she’ll believe me. And so what about the funeral? I can keep her from even thinking about it.”
“The other two women at the phone company know she went with you. The law know she’s with us.”
“She’ll dye her hair. She wanted to anyway, but her uncle wouldn’t let her. For Christ’s sake, Parker, she’s twenty-two years old, she’s nobody’s ward.”
“I don’t want her going back. I don’t want her saying it was a guy named Parker and a guy named Grofield and a guy named this and that, and that’s Grofield’s picture there, and that’s Phillips’ picture there, and all that crap.”
“She won’t go back, Parker.”
“I know that. I want to be sure youknow it.”
“Parker, I wouldn’t have brought her along if I wasn’t sure.”
“Yeah. Go get her. Send her out here.”
